Armadillo

Overview

Armadillo is a platformer game developed for the Nintendo Entertainment System by FortyFive (at the time, AIM) and published by Information Global Service on August 9th, 1991 in Japan. It is a fairly straight forward platformer in which you play an Billy the Shell, a cowboy who seeks to rescue his love, Sheryl from an evil organization who has since kidnapped her.

Gameplay

The game follows most platformer conventions, with the exception of having to roll up into a ball in order to kill enemies and make it past tougher platforming sections. Once in his ball form, Billy takes on completely different physics that allow crossing and reaching greater distances possible, but also make the character harder to control.

Another noticeable different is that progress in the game is gated by running into bosses on the world map as opposed to the linearity of most platforming games where each level must be completed in succession. If the player engages and defeats the boss, the next world is unlocked.

Sequel and other versions

A North American port to this game, plus a potential sequel for the GameBoy named Armadillo Gaiden were announced by Information Global Services, but never came to pass. The GameBoy sequel instead got re-branded as Ultraman Ball.

A popular unlicensed SuperVision hack of the game also exists, known as Rock'n Mario IV, which has Armadillo's sprites edited to look like a Super Mario game.